In 1975 skateboarding had risen back in popularity enough to have one of the largest skateboarding competitions since the 1960s, the Del Mar National Championships, which is said to have had up to 500 competitors. The competition lasted two days and was sponsored by Bahne Skateboards & Cadillac Wheels. While the main event was won by freestyle spinning skate legend Russ Howell,[30][31] a local skate team from Santa Monica, California, the Zephyr team, ushered in a new era of surfer style skateboarding during the competition that would have a lasting impact on skateboarding's history. With a team of 12, including skating legends such as Jay Adams, Tony Alva, Peggy Oki & Stacy Peralta, they brought a new progressive style of skateboarding to the event, based on the style of Hawaiian surfers Larry Bertlemann, Buttons Kaluhiokalani and Mark Liddell.[32] Craig Stecyk, a photo journalist for Skateboarder Magazine, wrote about and photographed the team, along with Glen E. Friedman, and shortly afterwards ran a series on the team called the Dogtown articles, which eventually immortalized the Zephyr skateboard team. The team became known as the Z-Boys and would go on to become one of the most influential teams in skateboarding's history.[27][33][34]
When you’re searching for one of the best decks on the market, it’s important to not go overboard. You don’t need one that is made from the rarest wood or that has the most unique design. The best boards may be the ones that balance cost, design, and quality. After all, with healthy use, you’ll eventually have to replace your deck anyway. You want the one that will give you the most functionality and enjoyment while you use it.
The good news is that majority of skate shoes today come with high-quality flat soles that are capable of providing the maximum surface area designed to let you come in contact to the board, thereby promoting better control. Look for a really durable shoe, which you can wear comfortably to guarantee a safe and enjoyable experience when you are skateboarding.
One thing can already be told – compared to 2015 a lot has changed! The selection of the ‘Brands of the Year’ is made up of the combination of sold decks, brand shop visits, search queries and your interest in blog entries regarding the top players in the business. Our own brand SK8DLX was not considered for the ranking. We are happy, however, that you love to skate our in-house boards diligently and the SK8DLX deck series is celebrated well. In this sense, a big thank you to you all! Let’s start with the 16 most popular skateboard deck brands of 2016!

This board is also a very smooth ride, and surprisingly offers plenty of stability as well, which makes it safe for beginners to learn with. Finally, it’s one of the few boards on this list that comes in a huge array of styles and artwork so that you can get the board that suits your style best. If what you want is a board that looks and performs like the boards you see at sporting events, this is the perfect choice. The only downside is that it’s not the most flexible board out there, which could make it a little harder to ease into turns – however, this feature is what makes the board just right for learning tricks on.

Top Skateboards come from companies such as Blind Skateboards. Professional skateboarder Mark Gonzales founded the brand and it was launched in 1989. Today, products are distributed by Dwindle Distribution. The brand is intended for serious, hardcore skateboarders. It has an emphasis and an appreciation for the graphics used for its decks. In the early 1990s, Blind Skateboards set itself apart from other skateboard brands by creating videos. Their first, directed by Spike Jonze, appeared in 1991. You can get completes at Blind that includes the decks, wheels, trucks, and bearings. The Blind Team is professional skateboarders Cody McEntire, TJ Rogers, Kevin Romar, Sewa Kroetkov, Morgan Smith, Sam Beckett, Micky Papa, Yuto Horigome, and Jason Thurtle.
The logos you grow up with always mean more to you than the ones that came before or after. I'm not even going to suggest that I can be unbiased about something that means so much to me; but I also like to think that as a skater who has worked within the industry as an artist and a skate rat that grew up in the Midwest, I can separate my love of the activity from my personal feelings about the industry and companies. These are important logos for many reasons. Some are more powerful and meaningful than others but what I'm addressing are icons that have come to represent skateboarding in a lot of ways... succinctly and graphically.

It's really hard to continue with a small girls’ board brand when so many companies are now interested in the women's market. We feel like it's the right time to close down the brand and move on to the next chapter. Thanks to George and Juli Powell as well as Michael Furukawa for their vision and support of the brand and our mission over the last decade. Thanks to those who bought our products, our team riders, media, and to those that believed in what we were doing from the very beginning. I also want to thank Mimi Knoop who wore multiple hats over the years and was responsible for making hoopla a brand that was respected, legitimate, and one that we were proud to be a part of.

The Rimable Complete 22″ Skateboard is the most compact street board that are ready-to-use. It is best for exercise and fun, and very portable. There are five colors that you can choose from Black, Blue, White, Purple, and Green. It has high-quality construction, with a high-density plastic deck. It features extremely smooth 59mm wheels along with ABEC7 bearings and solid aluminum trucks. It measures 22″ long and 6″ wide and weighs 4 pounds. It has the best rating of 4.3 on Amazon.
For the latest in skateboard clothing, fashion clothing and accessories, you have come to the right place here at SkateHut. We are the number one online skate shop and we are product leaders in all things skate – and that includes one of the most extensive collections of skate clothing around! Shop online today for a full range of skate clothes; browse our website for everything from hoodies and outerwear to t-shirts and tank tops, shirts and jeans to hats, belts and accessories. We offer stylish skateboard clothing for babies and toddlers, kids and adults so you can find skate clothing for the entire family. Browse online for the best skate brands and clothing brands around including Vans, MPG, Puma, Neff, Oakley, DC, WeSC, Aplinestars, Santa Cruz, Under Armour, Nike and many, many more. To view the full range, shop now and filter by product at your own convenience and leisure or call our team if you are looking for a specific product or you need help in choosing the right skate clothing for you. With hundreds of styles to choose from, we are confident that you will find the most stylish skateboard clothing to meet your sporting requirements.
However, the deeper the concave is, the less stable the board will be for beginners. If you are still gaining confidence on a skateboard, it is best to start with something less dramatic. A longboard is often completely flat, or nearly so, and that makes it better for cruising on a very stable surface. This is a great choice for riders who aren’t necessarily interested in learning tricks.
Well know for their creative cartoon graphics and high-quality deck construction, this Toy Machine complete is another great starting skateboard for beginners. This deck is slightly larger than 8″ so it would be perfect for adults or people with larger feet who want a more stable ride. This setup is another good example of generic parts with a pro quality deck for a very reasonable price. A great option for a beginner who loves the logo and graphic, but wants to save money on the less important parts until they decide they want to take their skating the to next level.

Freestyle skating remained healthy throughout this period, with pioneers such as Rodney Mullen inventing many of the basic tricks that would become the foundation of modern street skating, such as the "Impossible" and the "kickflip". The influence that freestyle exerted upon street skating became apparent during the mid-1980s; however, street skating was still performed on wide vert boards with short noses, slide rails, and large soft wheels. In response to the tensions created by this confluence of skateboarding "genres", a rapid evolution occurred in the late 1980s to accommodate the street skater. Since few skateparks were available to skaters at this time, street skating pushed skaters to seek out shopping centers and public and private property as their "spot" to skate. (Public opposition, in which businesses, governments, and property owners have banned skateboarding on properties under their jurisdiction or ownership, would progressively intensify over the following decades.)[40][41] By 1992, only a small fraction of skateboarders continuing to take part in a highly technical version of street skating, combined with the decline of vert skating, produced a sport that lacked the mainstream appeal to attract new skaters.

These boards are perfect! perfect shape (for me anyways) medium concave (which is better than deep or mellow in my opinion) perfect shape of the tail and nose, and have perfect pop (which last FOREVER) they're very durable too. Everything is perfect but why they're ranked so low is because not many people get deluxe boards than come here to write about how awesome they are.
See, not all boards are actually bidirectional. Most have a thick tail and a small nose but not this board. So if you’re a switch skater then this board brand is perfect for you. The urethane wheels are designed for the high stress environments and provide the top speed available. The deck tape provides the perfect grip even for those of us with older shoes that are essentially smooth on the bottom.
They have continued to ride that wave over the past year, continuously putting out great edits, following cherry up with Sickness, Red Devil, Joyride, and Swoosh, all in collaboration with cherry’s filmer Bill Strobeck. We all know they will never fall off when it comes to putting out fire gear every new season and drop, but to keep it coming with actual great footage is another story, and is definitely making skateboarding better today.